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Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, is not planning to take President Buhari's spokesperson Garba Shehu's comment on the unlawful detention of El-Zakzaky by President Muhammad Buhari lying low.

He released a statement yesterday, blasting Mr. Shehu over comments he made on Ibrahim El-Zakzaky’s continuous detention. Falana called it a show of official impunity.

Shehu had told journalists on Tuesday that El-Zakzaky, whom a court ordered his unconditional release, was not in detention but in protective custody.

Falana said Shehu had become power drunk.

Read the statement below:

“In a reckless demonstration of official impunity, Mr Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity purportedly issued a statement yesterday on behalf of the presidency to justify the illegal detention of Sheikh Ibraheem Elzakzaky and his wife, Hajia Ibraheema Elzakzaky,” he said.

“In the incendiary statement, Mr Shehu claimed that the valid and subsisting order of the federal high court made on December 2, 2016 would not be obeyed by the federal government on the dubious ground that the Sheikh is in ‘protective custody’ while the justification for holding the wife is that she is taking good care of her husband in the illegal custody.

“According to Mr Shehu, ‘El-Zakzaky is held for his own good. If you set him free, what do you think will happen on the streets? He is not in a typical prison condition. He has the company of his wife and children. They can leave if they want. There is overall public good weighing against his release.’

“In the chequered history of Nigeria, this is the first time that a democratically elected government has openly justified the detention of any citizen in defiance of a valid and subsisting order of a competent court of law.

“Even under the neo-tarzanist Buhari/Idiagbon military junta, court orders which directed that victims of the obnoxious Detention of Persons Decree No 2 of 1984 be released from illegal custody were complied with. But under a democratic government, Mr Shehu wants Nigerians to believe that the El-Zakzakys are held in ‘protective custody’ after the federal high court had declared such detention illegal and unconstitutional. Or has Mr Shehu suddenly become so power drunk to the extent that he can conveniently set aside the judgment of the federal high court?” He queried.